One set of grandparents jealous about time spent with other set

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yup. My MIL moved from her house 20 minutes away in rush hour traffic to a new place 45 minutes away with no traffic. We see her at Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, and her birthday. My husband schleps out for Mothers Day. I do not. She is obsessed with how much time we spend with my family as a family unit and how much time I spend with them on my own. I learned my lesson long ago. I don't engage. At all.

Omg this could be my MIL. It got so bad that I actually started a running tally of who saw who, and we saw her more! But she still loses her mind if I see my family. She gets even more bent out of shape when I see them on my own. It's bizarre! Call your son and invite him over! Invite us over! Come over! Sorry my family invites me and I go.

[Anonymous]

The solution for the west coast parents is in their hands not yours and if they thought about it maturely they would understand it. The best you can do is invite them to special events such as holidays, first communion, etc. etc. If they say no simply remind them of that when they complain about never seeing you. They have a lot more time flexibility than you do and it's less expensive for two people to travel than it is for you. Throw the ball into their court.

[Anonymous]

I've seen a similar dynamic with my extended family. The oddest thing was that they didn't seem to particularly like anyone in my branch of the family, but they still wanted us to drive hours and hours to spend holidays/special events at their house. It was a total popularity/power trip game. So strange.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, my MIL is local (about 45 minutes away). Some of my family is local, but I also have family a 2 hour plane ride away. My MIL was obsessed with the fact that when we spent Tday or Xmas or a weekend away with my sibling a plane ride away, we spent the night. We never spent the night with her! It was clearly VERY unfair. Even though we did things like, see her for Sunday dinners every month, while my out of town sibling saw us three times a year. That didn't matter. We didn't spend the night so it wasn't FAIR.

My DH even appeased her by having us spend the night at their house. It was fine but so weird because she still usually acted so put out and angry.

She had written this narrative in her head about How It Was and how she was getting the shit deal. It honestly didn't matter what we did or said. She'd decided we were unfair so anything we did backed up that view point. It was one of the hardest things we dealt with early in our marriage, since I just couldn't understand why she was SO mean to us, yet claimed to love us so much she wanted to spend MORE time with us. It wasn't about that. She just wanted to be The Most Loved Family, and here was my family, hogging the love.

It made me lose serious respect for her. Her snide comments did not make us love her more or want to spend more time with her. Things have gotten better in the last few years, but I think that's mostly because I've had two kids since then and I just don't have the time and energy to worry about her as much. We come when we can, we leave when we need to. We don't spend the night.

This is basically my MIL. She moved an hour (without traffic) away with visions on her grown kids + grandchild spending every weekend at the "country house"...despite no one ever corroborating that vision. Now, even when we do make it out there (which is awful for its own set of reasons), it's a guilt trip about how long it will be until we come out again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've seen a similar dynamic with my extended family. The oddest thing was that they didn't seem to particularly like anyone in my branch of the family, but they still wanted us to drive hours and hours to spend holidays/special events at their house. It was a total popularity/power trip game. So strange.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, my MIL is local (about 45 minutes away). Some of my family is local, but I also have family a 2 hour plane ride away. My MIL was obsessed with the fact that when we spent Tday or Xmas or a weekend away with my sibling a plane ride away, we spent the night. We never spent the night with her! It was clearly VERY unfair. Even though we did things like, see her for Sunday dinners every month, while my out of town sibling saw us three times a year. That didn't matter. We didn't spend the night so it wasn't FAIR.

My DH even appeased her by having us spend the night at their house. It was fine but so weird because she still usually acted so put out and angry.

She had written this narrative in her head about How It Was and how she was getting the shit deal. It honestly didn't matter what we did or said. She'd decided we were unfair so anything we did backed up that view point. It was one of the hardest things we dealt with early in our marriage, since I just couldn't understand why she was SO mean to us, yet claimed to love us so much she wanted to spend MORE time with us. It wasn't about that. She just wanted to be The Most Loved Family, and here was my family, hogging the love.

It made me lose serious respect for her. Her snide comments did not make us love her more or want to spend more time with her. Things have gotten better in the last few years, but I think that's mostly because I've had two kids since then and I just don't have the time and energy to worry about her as much. We come when we can, we leave when we need to. We don't spend the night.

This is basically my MIL. She moved an hour (without traffic) away with visions on her grown kids + grandchild spending every weekend at the "country house"...despite no one ever corroborating that vision. Now, even when we do make it out there (which is awful for its own set of reasons), it's a guilt trip about how long it will be until we come out again.

I wonder why this is so common. Insecurity? Mental illness?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A long weekend times four versus two weeks at once doesn’t sound like that much of a difference in actual time.

for children it's frequency versus length

[Anonymous]

Get your ass on a plan.

One more trip a year will not kill. you.

[Anonymous]

My in laws and parents live 5 mins away from each other. They live about 1hr45min away from us. My parents visit maybe 2xs every 2 months or more depending on what we have going on/their schedule. As for my in-laws the last time we saw them was July.......I told them before they can come whenever/spend a night...blah blah blah but they don't. I gave them options and its up to them. I've given up on trying to reach out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Get your ass on a plan.

One more trip a year will not kill. you.

How do you know their financials? One week a year wouldn't kill the grandparents either!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My in laws and parents live 5 mins away from each other. They live about 1hr45min away from us. My parents visit maybe 2xs every 2 months or more depending on what we have going on/their schedule. As for my in-laws the last time we saw them was July.......I told them before they can come whenever/spend a night...blah blah blah but they don't. I gave them options and its up to them. I've given up on trying to reach out.

I can relate. My ILs are constantly asking when they can come. We tell them ANY TIME. If they ask, we will check, and if they don't mind tagging along to XYZ, they are welcome ANY TIME. If we suggest a time it's, oh we have a golf outing, oh we have this or that. Then the next week, when can we come. It's so frustrating!

[Anonymous]

cest a vie

one side visits 3 weeks a pop once or twice a year from Europe. other side does 1 beach week plus 2-4 long weekends or side vacations (4th of july, mem day).